


storm and grace

by daylightfalls



Category: Fleetwood Mac (Band)
Genre: F/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 04:00:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daylightfalls/pseuds/daylightfalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s spring again, and she smells of gardenia and the way you used to be. (Dance era.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	storm and grace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nicole21290](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicole21290/gifts).



> Merry Christmas! ♥

It’s spring again, and she smells of gardenia and the way you used to be.

You’re falling for her once more, and everything is a little brighter and happier now. She laughs and you can’t help but stare and all you want is to run your fingers through her hair and never let her out of your bed. 

You’ve finally caught each other after twenty years. It took nearly a quarter century, but you made your way back to each other, and traces of the Stevie you fell in love with are coming through. 

She’s falling too.

 

 

By fall, you’re touring again and one morning, you ask her if she wants you to leave your girlfriend. 

She laughs in your face and says it doesn’t matter (because when has a girlfriend stopped either of you?), but you think she secretly just doesn’t want the pressure of being officially together. Because that’s when you fuck things up, and right now it’s probably easier to keep it light – although “light” isn’t exactly a suitable adjective for an affair but when have you ever been normal anyway? – so no harm done if (when?) it goes downhill.

(You wish she’d ask you to leave your girlfriend.)

 

 

But then—

 

 

 _Fuck_. 

This was not supposed to happen.

You suppose everything happens for a reason, but god, after hours of searching and three sleepless nights, you can’t find a single good reason as to why fate would try to fuck you up now.

You never wanted to be a father.

 

 

“She’s pregnant,” you choke out near the end of the tour.

She whips her head around. “ _Who is pregnant?”_

“Kristen.” You don’t even recognize your voice anymore.

She hesitates. “Are you sure?”

“She’s taken five tests and she has a doctor’s appointment on Friday.”

She’s quiet, and you’re not sure what’s coming next. You expect her to scream, to cry, to do _something_ so typically Stevie, but she’s uncharacteristically calm. She turns back around and studies her reflection in the vanity mirror, and you watch the tears well up in her eyes from behind her. She brings a fist down against the mirror, creating a spider web of cracks all through it.

She doesn’t even look at you onstage that night.

 

 

You had her, you fucking idiot.

You had her again, for what seemed like five blissful happy seconds, and then you fucked it up and she slipped through the space between your fingers yet again. You almost had it. Maybe you could’ve actually made it work this time, and one day you could tell your grandchildren of how you always knew you’d end up together eventually.

(Maybe that’s just a nice thought.)

  

 

You hold onto a little bit of hope that those five pregnancy tests are wrong, because it’s plausible that it could be a false positive five times, right?

“We’re going to have a baby!” Kristen exclaims when she returns that Friday afternoon. She hugs your neck and you think you might throw up.

You lose it onstage that night and you don’t bother trying to hide it. Your sense of reality disappears and the audience and applause fades and she is all you see. You feel like you’ve taken five different drugs at all once and you want to scream and _you fucked it up_. 

Stevie won’t tell exactly tell you how hurt she is, but she’s always worn her heart on her sleeve. You know her well enough to know that when she’s angry, that means you fucked up, but when she won’t even acknowledge you? That’s when it cuts her down to the bone.

She’s even more beautiful when you know she can’t be yours anymore.

 

 

It takes a few days, but she lets you come around again.

You feel like you should be the one comforting her, but she becomes a comfort for you. You apologize for everything that you are and you cry into her lap before you make love one last time.

“We need to be done for good,” she says as you help her out of her dress. “It’s gonna be different now.” You murmur in agreement in between dropping kisses on her shoulder.

“Just tonight,” you tell her, and you both pretend to believe it.

She thinks you don’t see her shed a few tears as she’s re-dressing herself, and you pretend not to because you don’t think you can face the pain written all over her face—pain that’s there because of you.

But as she’s leaving, she turns around suddenly to face you, making no effort to hide her emotions. “I fucking _loved_ you,” she says, her voice cracking. She pauses before quietly adding, “Like I used to.” She doesn’t give you time to respond and you wince as the door slams behind her.

 

  

She runs off to Hawaii for five months without saying goodbye. When you finally track her down, Karen answers the phone and tells you, in slightly kinder but no uncertain terms, to fuck off. 

You deserve it. You’ve done some terrible things to her in the past, but this – the one that was unintentional – is the one that breaks her the most. She deserves someone better than you, you bitterly think.

You try to write but she spills out in all of your words, all of your melodies. You pick out stuff for the baby room with Kristen while debating booking a flight to Hawaii, and you decide on a crib and against booking the flight around the same time.

 

  

When she comes back, she’s hardened. She’s lost some of the innocence she used to have, she’s a little more guarded and you hate yourself a bit for being the reason for that. She’s not the same woman you made love to before she withdrew to a tropical island. She’s tan, her eyes are darker and she doesn’t love you. 

She lets you in under the pretense of an apology, but you can’t even manage to spit out an “I’m sorry,” before burying your face in her neck and wrapping your arms around her waist. You hope that’s enough for her. 

She comforts you – yet again – and you know she’s a better person than you’ll ever be.  

“I’m okay,” she says when you pull away, but the sadness in her eyes contradicts her words. “I promise I’ll be okay,” she rectifies when you shoot her a look that says _bullshit_.

“I never meant for this to happen,” you finally say.

“I know, honey. I’m mostly just sad. I’m sad for us. I’m sad we never got a good ending. ” She cracks the smallest of smiles and adds, “I’m sad _we_ didn’t even get the chance to fuck it up this time.” 

You try to chuckle at that and when you can’t, you wonder why this is so much harder for you than it is for her. The ocean breeze must have healing powers. "You think we would've fucked it up this time?" you ask, refusing to break eye contact. She bites her lip and doesn't respond, almost as though she senses the danger in that question.

"Guess we'll never know," she says softly."

“We’re gonna be okay, right?” you ask.

She looks at you pensively, biting her bottom lip. “Eventually.”

She shows you out, and you don’t make any attempts to talk to her for a good six months after that. You figure you owe her that.

 

 

Maybe it could’ve worked out this time, time having calmed you both, and you would’ve finally settled down together.

Maybe you would’ve ended up hating each other again, and drifted too far apart to ever make your way back to each other.

Maybe it’s best you’ll never know.


End file.
